Council wants to consider licensing rentals as a way to control AirBnB situations: Aldershot resident would love to see that happen

By Pepper Parr

March 29th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

Getting on the agenda at Tuesday’s Standing Committee took a special motion but Aldershot resident Chris Regan did get a chance to tell his story – it was not a pretty picture – the system failed him at several steps along the way.

Chris Regan – has an AirBnB residence next to his house which has five cameras capturing every visitor to his door

Chris Regan wanted to speak to an item regarding development and implementation of a city wide short term accommodation compliance and licensing program

Chris and his wife lived on Danforth Place, a quiet neighbourhood where the street slopes towards the lake.

A large six bedrooms, six bath, house next door had been recently sold.  Regan and his wife and one of their neighbours met with the new residents a day or so after they moved in

When he first met his new neighbour they had taken possession of the house. My wife and I met them, along with our neighbours to welcome to the neighbourhood. They were very nice they told us they were very excited to be moving in. They had I believe three children and they were very excited to have them go skate on the bay. We found out later on that they’ve never had any intention of moving in, they marketed it for what they’re using it for today.

I had a second chance to greet him. I was going to my car in my driveway he was in his, they were cleaning out the property after some renters that come in and we basically just exchanged pleasantries. I certainly wasn’t in any position to confront him. Knowing what they were doing with the property, I felt that it wasn’t the right way to do it. The right way to do it was to go to our counsellor and to take action from that point.

I hate to stand up and complain about things. I’ve owned a business in Burlington for the last 22 years.  Regan has been a Burlington resident for the last 60 odd years. We currently reside on Danforth Place and have been there for the last 12 years. When the property was sold in December the new owner immediately turned it into an Airbnb. They advertise it as an “event center”.

I understand that everybody has a right to operate a business providing they are doing it legally and without disruption to the rest of the community.  On 11 different occasions since they’ve rented it out we have personally had people come to our door thinking our house was the Airbnb location.

“We have all of this on cameras. We have five cameras around our home. The neighbour on the other side of us also has cameras on their home

Homes on Danforth Place in Aldershot

“It’s basically a party place and the disruption to our neighbourhood and to our security. On eight different occasions, we have had cleaners, food delivery people and UPS or Amazon people show up at our door, leave food, leave packages, leave parcels – we have all this on camera.

We’ve literally had to walk to our neighbour’s home to tell them it was delivered to our home.

We’re perfectly prepared to offer the video evidence that we have from our home and from our neighbour’s home as well, to back up the claims that I’m making here today.

Councillor Stolte, who faced a similar situation in ward 4 started out by saying: “ I feel your pain”.

Adding that “we’re looking at for short term accommodations solution that will help to negate situations like what you’re dealing with.  Yours is something that can be dealt with through a different opportunity that may resolve it sooner than what we’re able to get to through this with the Short Term Accommodation Licensing program that is being considered.

Regan explains that “we have been advised to go through the bylaw department and register complaints about the noise activity and the open bonfires outside that has embers and the ashes are hitting my wooden deck.

“I called the fire department first – they told me to call the city – I call the city. The city told me to call the bylaw department. But to answer your question I don’t believe I’ve been informed of another way of bringing this to anybody’s attention and that’s why I’m here today.

Councillor Galbraith asked: “ Can you let us know how they are marketing this? This house says is it just an Airbnb? Are they going sort of beyond that and and marketing it as an event center?

Regan explains: “I’m not sure whether they currently been marketing as an event center. They started marketing as an event center. We saw the ads. It did go through Airbnb. I’ve just gotten back into the country to come to this meeting. So I I’m not sure I haven’t even had a chance to look at the current ads and how they’re running it. But you know what, five and six cars in their driveway at any given time. It appears to me that for the most part it’s being run as an event center or to hold meetings. And again, I can’t verify that but I can just see from what I’ve seen.

We’ve called bylaw on several occasions have not heard back yet. We’ve told that there’s a long wait for the bylaw people who are very busy. Our neighbours on the other side of the home  called the police department three times on

Our neighbours, Diane and Colin, have had people, renters, walk into their home without even knocking on the door and asking where the party is. Diane and Colin had their neighbours over at the house at the time, that can corroborate and confirm how people, not even knocking on the door, but literally walking into the home thinking okay.  It was as if they were walking into a convention center and didn’t need to knock on anybody’s door. We can just come into their home. That’s happened to them twice.

It’s never happened to us, we always keep our door locked even when we’re in the home.

Mayor Meed Ward thanks Regan for sharing “what is undoubtedly a very stressful situation then asked Regan if he had been in touch with AirBnB – I know they do have some regulations to try to prevent party houses, have you complained to them? What did they say?

Regan: Yes, we have registered a complaint to Airbnb. The response was basically a standard response to saying that they’re not taking any further action against what we’ve registered as a complaint.  It was basically a boilerplate letter back saying okay, we we’ve got your complaint, and we’re basically not going to do anything about it.

The Mayor asks a second question around the zoning and “whether you’ve had any questions or discussion with staff, I’m quite certain a residential area is zoned for commercial Event Center activity.  We can ask stuff about this.  But has that come up in any of your discussion? Would that be an opportunity?

Regan: It has come up in discussions with Councillor Galbraith and he was of the opinion that nowadays, you know that it is a residential neighborhood and it shouldn’t be marketed and advertised as an event type center. That to my knowledge is the extent of the discussions I’ve had.

Councillor Bentivegna adds that come the summer it is probably going to be busier than in winter. How often do you have these circumstances ?

“How often over a 30 period would that happen?

I believe they started marketing it as Airbnb in December, I think if it happens more than twice a month, which I know it has it.

You know it? It seems to be a lot. And you’re absolutely right. That concern with us really has not been now but what’s going to happen?

They have a beautiful property. And we know that it’s a fairly big property. We know that when summer comes it’s it will be more people coming and going coming and going all all the time.

Again, I’m not here to shut his business down or any business down. But I do believe that the the rights of the security and the privacy of their neighbours is being severely compromised here.

Councillor Sharman asks: “I’m a little uncertain about your comments about the fire department and by law  – can you tell us about the nature of the fire? Is it an open fire,

It was an open bonfire. And it was on their property. My property sits very close to their property. And this was an uncontained bonfire.  We have properties where we had bonfires on, we knew it’s illegal.  When we lived up in Cedar Springs we had one and the fire department showed up so we knew it was illegal.

I phoned the fire department that night because the embers were literally coming up to our main floor deck and our second floor deck is as well – we own an elevated home overlooking the bay, and the wind was blowing in our direction. Of course the smoke was blowing in our directions as well.

Sharman: The critical point was it was an open fire. Did anyone from the fire department come out ?

No the fire department did not come out. They said we had to phone the bylaw department.

Did you call by law ?

My wife called by law once and Diane and Colin brown have called them three times. Mostly for the noise by law and obviously once for them going right into their homes.

Bentivegna  – Just a quick follow up – have you written them and emailed the council and asked them to engage the buyer on a review of the zoning circumstances?

Councillor Sharman said to Regan: “I really appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you so much for your time and I’m very sympathetic to your cause.